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Fried Oysters, Horley
Prepare a small quantity of batter for fritters. Have thirty-six large, freshly opened oysters; drain well and plunge half of them in the batter; lift with the fingers, one by one, and plunge in boiling fat and fry for seven minutes, or until a nice golden colour. Lift up with a skimmer, thoroughly drain on a cloth, trim off the superfluous adherings, dress on a hot dish with a folded napkin and keep warm. Proceed to prepare the other half in the same way, and serve with a saucebowl (one gill) of hot tomato sauce separately.
A straightforward fritter, but the frying time as printed will ruin the oysters. Read the second point before anything else.
- Seven minutes is far too longAn oyster is cooked through in well under a minute; the batter is what needs the heat. In fat at 375F a battered oyster colours in 60 to 90 seconds, two minutes at the outside. Seven minutes gives you a rubbery pellet in a dark shell.
- Fat temperature"Boiling fat" means fat at frying heat, around 370-380F. Below 350F the batter absorbs grease; above 400F it colours before the inside sets. Fry in two or three small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- A gillHalf a cup, which is the right amount of tomato sauce for this quantity as a dipping sauce rather than a coating.
- The batterThe book expects you to know a fritter batter and gives none here. A thick coating batter of flour, egg and enough milk or beer to make it just pourable works; let it rest 20 minutes so it clings.
- Drain the oysters properlyWet oysters shed their batter in the fat. Drain them, then blot on a cloth or paper before they go into the bowl, and dust lightly with flour if the batter still slides.
- "Trim off the superfluous adherings"Snip away the tails and threads of fried batter that trail off each fritter, so they sit neatly. Kitchen scissors are quicker than a knife.
- The folded napkinPeriod service laid a napkin on the hot platter under fried items, chiefly to absorb oil. Paper towel under a warmed serving dish does the same job and looks less odd now.
- YieldThirty-six oysters serves six as a first course, or four generously. Fry to order; battered oysters go soft within ten minutes of leaving the fat.
Filippini's International Cook Book runs to thousands of short entries, many of them tagged with a name, and such tags generally work as professional shorthand rather than history: a dish may be named for a patron, a colleague, a hotel, or a town, and the name fixes a particular garnish or sauce so a kitchen knows what to send out. What "Horley" refers to here is not recorded. Filippini cooked at Delmonico's in New York, where oysters were cheap and abundant and fried oysters were standard restaurant fare rather than a delicacy.